Marijuana seed dealer who spent fortune on pot reform gets 5 years

Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, September 9, 2010

Canadian marijuana seed dealer and pro-pot activist Marc Emery has been sentenced to a five-year prison term, marking the end of a years-long legal fight once cast by federal authorities as a blow to the marijuana reform movement.

Imposing Emery's sentence Friday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez honored a plea agreement struck earlier this year by Emery to avoid a potential 10-year prison term.

Emery -- a 12-time candidate for elected office in Canada often described as the "Prince of Pot" -- spent millions of dollars gained through a mail-order marijuana seed business to advocate for marijuana law reform in Canada and the United States. After a five-year extradition fight, Emery pleaded guilty earlier this year to drug crimes, which he described as "civil disobedience."

Writing the court in preparation for Friday's hearing, Emery cast his multi-million-dollar seed business as having been a tool in his fight against marijuana prohibition.

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When he and two coworkers were arrested following a lengthy Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, Emery's was one of dozens of businesses selling marijuana seeds. Federal prosecutors contend Emery's was the largest such operation running at the time of this arrest.

For reasons never explained by the Justice Department, Emery was the sole Canadian on the attorney general's most wanted list of drug traffickers. At the time, violence was on the rise among British Columbia-based gangs largely funded by the province's illicit marijuana crop. Emery, by contrast, was paying taxes on the seeds he sold by mail and through a Vancouver storefront, and has never been tied publicly to organized crime.

At the time of Emery's arrest, then DEA Chief Karen Tandy issued a statement saying: "Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement

"His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today. … Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

"From the Department of Justice's perspective, the focus of this case always has been, and should remain, on Emery's long term and repeated violations of the U.S. drug laws," Greenberg told the court.

"The government's case," he continued, "was investigated and prosecuted without regard for Emery's personal politics, his political agenda, or the ways in which he chose to spend the proceeds of his drug crimes."

But Emery attorney Richard Troberman cited Tandy's statement as evidence that his client was targeted for fighting against the drug war.

Troberman argued his client was targeted by the DEA because he, unlike his competitors in the marijuana seed business, used his profits to fund pro-pot initiatives, including medical marijuana reforms in several U.S. states.

"The only thing that makes Mr. Emery unique or different from most of these other seed sellers is that Marc donated his proceeds to help fund lawful marijuana legalization efforts throughout the United States and Canada," Troberman told the court. "On this record, no one can or should take the government seriously when it claims that this case was not politically motivated."

In a letter to the court filed prior to Friday's sentencing, Emery was contrite. He'd previously fought extradition and, through his supporters, continues to conduct small rallies demanding his release.

"It has always been my sincere belief that the prohibitions on cannabis are hurtful to U.S. and Canadian citizens and are contrary to the constitutions of both countries," the 52-year-old wrote in the Sept. 1 letter.

"I regret not choosing other methods -- legal ones -- to achieve my goals of peaceful political reform," the former candidate for Vancouver, B.C., mayor continued. "I have no one to blame but myself."

Speaking to her husband's Cannabis Culture magazine, Jodie Emery reiterated that the seed business was run "with the explicit goal of funding the marijuana legalization movement."

"He paid his income tax on seed sales, and operated openly and transparently," Jodie Emery said, according to Cannabis Culture. "Marc and I have no savings, bonds, stocks, property, cars, homes, or anything of value. On the day of his arrest, he had $11 in his bank account.

Emery and his supporters have asked that he be allowed to serve his prison sentence in Canada. Unless and until that happens, Emery is expected to be housed at a Bureau of Prisons facility inside the United States.